Chaz Davies is confident of a strong World Superbikes showing in his home round at Donington Park after posting the fifth fastest time in opening practice.

The Knighton-born rider was just 0.013seconds behind his aruba.it Racing team-mate Marco Melandri who clocked the fourth quickest time.

Kawasaki’s reigning two-time champ Jonathan Rea set the pace ahead of team-mate Tom Sykes with Leon Haslam third on his wild card return to the series.

Davies, whose time was one minute 28.166seconds on the Leicestershire track, said: “It wasn’t a bad day.

“We’re not too far away and we just need to work on stability to improve my feeling with the package and be able to choose slightly different lines.

“The resurfaced areas are better, but the problem is that there are quite big bumps where the joins are.

“We need to tidy up a bit here and there to be more consistent.

“We’re working to improve the overall chassis balance and some electronics stuff as well.

“Also, we’ll use a much fresher engine tomorrow so that should give us a couple of tenths too.”

Davies has one more free practice session on Saturday before qualifying and then the first of this weekend’s two races.

The Welshman is second in the riders’ standings 74 points behind Rea and one ahead of Sykes who has won the past eight races at the track.